Written by Elizabeth Merrill at ESPN.com
He played his last college football game with chants of “He hits women!” raining down from the stands, so maybe that’s why Joe Mixon didn’t put much thought into how his new NFL city would receive him. Of course there will be fans who despise him.
His fellow draftees held parties; Mixon instead played basketball in his hometown of Oakley, California, which is about 40 miles from Oakland. He put his cellphone on the loudest possible setting, just so he wouldn’t miss any calls, and shot hoops at his mom’s house. Midway through the second round of the NFL draft Friday night, the Cincinnati Bengals called and told him he would be the 48th overall pick. Coach Marvin Lewis was the first one to welcome the Oklahoma running back to the team, and Mixon cried.
Within a few hours, he was on a red-eye flight to Cincinnati, where he was whisked away to a news conference and a draft party before retreating to his hotel for dinner. By Sunday morning, he was gone, because that’s the way you quietly introduce a player whose most memorable video isn’t of him breaking tackles, but rather of him punching a woman in the face.
In a phone interview from his apartment in Oklahoma that lasted nearly 45 minutes late Sunday night, Mixon said he has come to terms with everything — his NFL future, his past mistakes, and his legal situation with Amelia Molitor, the woman he hit in 2014. He settled a civil lawsuit with her last month. It was, in some ways, cathartic. The two met in Mixon’s lawyer’s office in Oklahoma City in mid-April, and, according to Mixon, shared a hug. (Molitor could not be reached.)
The way the NFL goes sometimes, if a man scores touchdowns and leads his team to victories, eventually, almost anything can be forgotten. But around 1 o’clock ET on Monday morning, when the conversation wrapped up, Mixon said he wanted to be defined by what happens off the field.
“People try to perpetrate me as some type of bad guy, some monster for one mistake I made three years ago,” Mixon said. “I want people to get around me, to come talk to me, to be comfortable. I’m not trying to really prove anything. I just want people to get around me and get a feel for me. If they don’t like me then, hey, so be it. I’m sorry they feel like that.
“I want to go out and help kids maybe. I want to help and talk at shelters with women. I hope to make a difference.”
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